The last week

Hi all from not-so-sunny Rio. Today´s my last day, and tonight I fly back home. It´s an 11 hour flight over the Atlantic but it´s direct which is nice! I´m quite excited about going home but I´ll definitely miss Brazil! It was sad leaving Salvador yesterday.

I went into hospital yesterday morning and we had a mini party. It was really fun, despite the fact that I had to make a speech in Portuguese to about 30 people (the whole haematology department)! Scary stuff, although I guess it shows how much my Portuguese has improved as I´d have found it much harder 4 weeks ago. I think they´ve enjoyed having me but as they said it´s been crazy time in the department- they´ve just started doing bone marrow transplants there which is huge progress, they´ve had new students in and most significantly, the residents (like junior doctors, they´re the first 2 or 3 years after graduation) were all on strike for a month, and only came back a week and a half ago. From my point of view it was a shame as I got on really well with them when they did get here, but from everyone else´s point of view it was a nightmare and all the doctors were really overworked. Although actually this last week they seemed to spend a fair amount of time in the afternoons sitting around doing nothing whilst the residents did it all! I can´t believe they´re allowed to strike, especially for that long. When I talked to them about it it did seem a bit more fair though- they get paid about 12000 US dollars a year which is about 8000 pounds, before tax. Brazil is expensive, and although that´s probably more than most Brazilians earn by a long way it´s still really not much after 6 years of study. Anyway I´m glad I´ll be working in the UK!

It was a fun week. I went out for a friend´s birthday on Monday and then on Wednesday one of the nurses at the hospital took me out to another all you can eat meat restaurant with her son and step-daughter. It was so smart- we drove up and were met by a man who parked the car for us and the restaurant was really smart and very expensive I think. Really how the other half live! We ate so much. Then they drove me to the other place they like to eat and showed me the restaurants by the sea with glass-floored balconies so that you can see the fish beneath. It´s by the marina and they pointed out their friends yachts! They used to live in England and were comparing Brazil and the UK and asking whether I though Brazil was entering the ´1st World´ I think their Brazil probably is but for lots of people it isn´t. One of the doctors drove me to the airport yesterday and showed me how much of the city is made up of favelas.

On Thursday night I went to a folkshow in the old centre which was really fun- lots of Afro-Brazilian music and dancing and a really impressive capoeira (Brazilian martial-art) show. The culture of Salvador is very unique in Brazil because of the huge African population and it was good to see a bit of it before I left! It´s all still part of the culture too- you see young boys all the time doing capoeira on the beaches.

I left Salvador and it was sunny and really hot, in Rio it was much colder and raining. I guess it´s good to slowly be introduced to the cold before I get to London!

Love Sophie

A week in my life

Oops, it´s been a week since I last wrote! I have a couple of excuses though! I spent the weekend at a place called Praia do Forte, which is about 2 hours from Salvador. It was weird to get on a bus again after so long, and even weirder to get off so soon, I don´t miss the epic journeys that Jen and I went on! Praia do Forte is a weird little place. It´s where rich Brazilians go on holiday. They fly to Salvador airport and then get a bus straight there and totally skip big scary Salvador. It´s small, safe and very expensive but a nice place for a weekend to escape the city. 4 of us went from the hostel. 3 Americans, Erin, Sarah and Will and I. However we bumped into two Danish guys who had left the hostel the day before so we all stayed together. They are very entertaining so it was a really nice and fun weekend!

We spent most of the time on the beach. It was gorgeous- pine trees, sand and then turquiosy-blue sea. The sea bed was so flat that the waves were breaking about 100m out which was odd. They have a turtle rescue centre there so we wandered around there and spent the rest of the time sunbathing and drinking coconut water, açaí (a sorbet made from a rainforest berry and served with granola and banana, it´s yummy!) and caipirinhas. On the way back I sat next to an Argentinian woman and talked to her in Spanish which was so nice, it feels so easy and fluent compared to Portuguese. My Portuguese is improving a lot though.

I went into hospital on Monday and Tuesday but since then haven´t been very well. I got an insect bite (not even the doctors can decide exactly what it was but probably just a mosquito) last Wednesday on my ankle. By Thursday morning it was a little blister and every day it grew until over the weekend and on Monday it hurt when I walked and was about an inch wide. On Monday the doctors drained it and gave me antibiotics (as in their words `you´re foreign and can´t cope with our Brazilian bacteria so will probably get infected and ill!´) Sure enough I did and have spent the last 3 days in bed with a fever. Feeling a lot better today though and just ventured out to buy more antibiotics (I could only afford half of them when I bought the first lot, they´re expensive here.) which feels like a big achievement! It´s my last weekend here though so I hope I´m well enough to at least make it to the beach, and maybe go back to the old town. This time next week I´ll be flying to Rio, and a week tomorrow I´m flying home!

A snapshot of Brazil

Brazil is really a crazy country. It´s so huge and varied in every way. I still only know a tiny bit of it but I feel like I´m getting to know it a bit better. Salvador itself is really unique as it is sometimes referred to as 'the second biggest African city in the world' (I´m not 100% sure this is true but it doesn´t really matter) 80% of the population are black and there are lots of African influences- in the food, the religion etc. Meanwhile many of the doctors are paler than I am (!) as they are of Germanic or Italian origin and clearly never go out in the sun, as my tan is only from two days on a Salvador beach and really not very impressive! The people are so much fun and the way the doctors treat their patients is so different from in the UK (or Peru)- they hug most of them to say hi and are much less formal.

One interesting thing at the moment is that there´s an election soon and so lots of campaigning is going on. One method used a lot is to cover a car or van with posters of the candidate and then drive along with a huge pair of speakers blasting out a song about the candidate. They proclaim how hard working and fair they are or how dedicated to the job. It´s really really weird and the songs are very annoying but it keeps me amused on my walk into the hospital! On the other hand, if you talk to any Brazilian they will tell you that the government is basically powerless. They make hundreds of laws (according to the guy who works in the hostel a lot more than most countries) and no-one obeys them.

The same guy lives in the favela where he grew up but is in the army and used to go on secret missions in Rio´s favelas to find (and then kill) the drug-lords. He was saying how he´d pretend to be buying drugs and drive up in a posh car, or would start going out with a girl from the favela so he could get in and have an excuse to be there. It´s so sad though, because he said almost all of his friends from when he was a kid are dead, mostly because they didn´t have money to pay for the drugs so they were shot, sometimes for owing only about 100 reais (40 pounds). It´s so tragic and scary to hear the stories first hand. If anyone there found out he was in the army he´d be killed too. And because the army (like him) pretend to be doctors,postmen etc any unknown people entering the favela re often just killed without questions, so most doctors don´t dare to go in.

Porto da Barra

Thought it was about time I wrote about my very fun weekend. I spent almost all of it at Porto da Barra, the main beach in Salvador itself and about 5 minutes walk from the hostel. I was told by someone here that it was listed as the third best beach in the world in this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2007/feb/16/beach.top10
I´m not totally sure that it is but it´s great fun!

A group of about 7 of us went from the hostel. The sea was rough so there were big waves for jumping and unlike most of the week before it was gloriously sunny. The beach was really busy but it seemed like most of the people there were trying to sell us something. We ate cheese on sticks that the sellers melt over little barbeques and drank coconut water- the coconuts are huge and green and full of water which is apparently really healthy. It doesn´t taste of coconut but is nice and really refreshing. They chop of the top and give you a straw and then you can go back and they cut it in two so you can eat the flesh. It tastes much nicer than the ones in the UK, which are much older and dried. Then later in the afternoon we moved onto caipirinhas (lime, cachaça, sugar and ice cocktails)! It was very relaxing and so nice after three days in hospital, which is really hard work. There´s so much going on at the beach, it becomes the hub of the city at weekends. We went back on Sunday until the skies opened and it started to pour with rain- the weather changes so quickly here.

On Sunday evening I went to a churrascaria with Jayne and Mike, an English couple I met in Lima and kept in touch with so we could meet up again in Salvador! Basically they are very Brazilian meat restaurants which have buffets of salad and then waiters who come round with different types of meat on sticks. You have a piece of card with one side red and the other green and they give you meat whenever it´s green. I went last time I was here and just ate salad but I thought I should try it now I´m not vegetarian! The meat was really nice but so filling- I didn´t really have an appetite all day Monday as I ate so much! Don´t think I´ll go back but it was a good experience and very cheap for what it was. Also the restaurant was right on the beach so we had good views of the huge waves breaking in the dark!

Back to hospital

Just finished my second day in hospital, I´m exhausted but it´s really interesting and they´re really nice to me! On Tuesday night we all went out to a street party in the centre. It rained and rained but we still had fun, dancing to live music in the middle of the square and trying to avoid the old men who wanted to teach us samba! It was huge group of us from the hostel. I´m glad I went though as I´m too tired after hospital to do anything!

I´m based in the haematology department, but it actually seems to be mostly oncology- basically leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma. I haven´t actually done ether haem or oncology in London yet so I don´t know very much but they seem happy to teach me! It´s actually really interesting, if rather depressing. I spend the morning in the ward and then have clinics in the afternoon. The hospital´s really good. It´s a public hospital, and apparently it´s a nightmare to get in to hospital as there are so many people needing help but they get totally free care there, which is great. Unfortunately lots of the expensive tests which cancer patients need are not available and so the patients have to decide whether to pay laods of money (which they often can´t afford) to go privately. I´m getting more and more pro-NHS! I talked to a nurse today who lived in the Uk a few years ago and she was saying how incredible it is and how jeaous she is. Compared to Peru though the Brazilain system seems good. The hospital is much nicer too, and they have soap and alcohol handwash which makes me happy, the hospital in Iquitos didn´t feel very clean!

The doctors are really friendly and I think I´m a bit of a novelty so they all want to teach me. Today I did half of a bone-marrow aspiration (very exciting, but I won´t do into any more detail as too many people are squeamish!). They keep sending me off to take histories, and the patients are so hard to understand. One of the doctors said today that he sometimes struggles too as they have a very strong local accent, so that made me feel a bit better. It´s so hard in Portuguese, way harder than in Spanish. Today was easier than yesterday though and I didn´t almost fall asleep before lunch like I did yesterday so thinks are getting better! I did think I might not manage 3 weeks without collapsing from exhaustion!

Salvador

Hello from sunny Salvador. It´s a lovely place, full of gorgeous beaches with lovely sand and turquoise, wavey water. Shame I´m here to work, not just surf and sunbathe!

Jen and I had a fun couple of days in Rio. Saturday was lovely and warm and we spent time on the beach, jumping waves in the Atlantic and then wandered around drinking juices and looking at the shops. In the afternoon we decided to do something touristy so we went up Sugar Loaf mountain. The first bit was in the light and then it got dark so we saw the views in both the day and night. Rio is such a pretty city! We then went to meet our friend Marcia who we met in Puno. She´s so sweet and seemed really excited to see us! We met her Mum in their flat and then went out to a pizza restaurant. You paid a set price and they brought different types of pizza and soft drinks to the table. Then when we were totally full they brought out the chocolate and fruit pizzas. We then went back to the flat where they made us proper English tea and showed us their photos from when they were in England. It made me miss home!

The next two days were rainy and dull. It´s very hard to find things to do in Rio in the rain so we were quite lazy! We met some nice people though and did some shopping. On Saturday we went to another all you can eat place- I could get very fat in Brazil!

Yesterday Jen went home and I flew to Salvador. It was sad to say bye but I´m excited to be here. Oh and the taxi driver from the airport thought I was Brazilian which made me very happy!

Today is Independence day so I didn´t have to go to hospital. I´ve done pretty well out of Independence days in South America, though it is just one, not 3 days here! I went to the beach with some Australian girls in my room in the morning and then went into the centre and met up with a British couple I met in the Pantanal. It was nice to see familiar faces! We sat in a square and watched the world go by. There doesn´t seem to be too much going on for the holiday but there was lots of music everywhere and people dressed up. Up early tomorrow for my first day of school! I´m a little bit apprehensive...

Rio!!!!!!!!

We made it! We're in Rio and yesterday went for a really nice walk along the Atlantic on Copacabana beach! It's much nicer than the Pacific in Lima, which was grey, stormy and surrounded my ugly buildings. I'm gald we travelled this way round. I feel closer to home too- the time difference is now only 4 hours, not 6 like in Peru, and it's the same sea I was surfing on in Cornwall in July!

We have 2 more nights here before I head off to Salvador and Jen goes home. Today we're planning to go to the beach in Rio, and maybe do some touristy stuff and go flip-flop shopping (mine got dyed rather brown from the mud in the Pantanal). Tomorrow we're hopefully going to a place called Ilha Grande with some Brazilian friends we met on the way to La Paz. The only problem is the weather- today it's forecast as 35 degrees and sunny, tomorrow 23 and rainy! Either way it's nice to relax and know that we have no more long bus journeys left.

The Pantanal

Oi from Brazil! (Oi means hi, but it still feels odd to say it!)
I´m writing from a town called Campo Grande about 7 hours by bus into Brazil from the border. We arrived in Brazil on Monday morning, got to the border by taxi, did the border formalities and then spend about the same amount on a taxi into the town as we had on both of our bus tickets from Santa Cruz (and probably more than the equivalent jounrey in a London blackcab)! Brazil was expensive when I was here 2 years ago but now it´s ridiculous. Clealy it´s a good thing in many ways- their economy is booming and they are very happy to point this out, aware that the same isn´t true in other countries. It´s annoying for us though!
We tried to find a tour agency we´d emailed but in the 4 or so years since my guidebook was written they´d moved twice and apparently now don´t exist! We found another though and an hour later were on a bus ready to start our 3 day tour. We were picked up in the middle of nowhere by a jeep and driven about an hour into the Pantanal, stopping on the way when the guide saw snake tracks and decided to walk, barefoot, into the bushes to see if he could find us an anaconda!

We stayed in a bigish place with space for 25 or 30 tourists. We slept in hammocks, which I love! Every morning or evening we did something and we stayed for 2 nights and left yesterday lunch time. It was amazing, we saw so much, way more than you could ever hope to see in a rainforest. The first afternoon we went for a walk (in flipflops, in a place full of snakes and insects, apparently it´s best as they make less noise). We saw lots of monkeys playing in the trees, an anteater, lots of weird rodenty things, including the capybara which is the biggest rodent in the world, deer, lots of birds- toucans, macaw, parrots. I will upload pictures in Rio or Salvador. The next day we went out on a boat and saw loads of caiman, iguanas, even more birds and capybara. We then went piranha fishing (I´m a bit bored of fishing now, but am an old-hand with a bamboo rod and a bit of bait!) and swimming in the river with said piranha and caiman! It´s perfectly safe and was so nice as it was really hot. Much less muggy than the Amazon though and I only got 2 bites, compared to the hundreds in Peru! On the last day we saw giant otter too and an anaconda came into our camp which was exciting. Overall it was a grest experience, it´s a magical place. Parts of it look like a swamp, other bits could be the English countryside :-)

I practiced lots of portuguese too which was nice. My vocabulary is a bit smaller than it was but I´ve stopped speaking Spanish!

We left yesterday and spent a night in Campo Grande and in a couple of hours we head to Rio- our final bus, 24 hours and then we´re done! Can´t believe we´re almost there, I wasn´t 100% sure how we were going to manage when we looked at the Pacific in Lima and realised next time we saw it it would be the Atlantic 1000s of miles away. Unfortunately the bus costs loads, probably about the same as the other 7 or so put together!

Rushing through Bolivia!

We stayed one night in La Paz and then got up the next morning and got a bus to a place called Cochabamba. The buses are surprisingly good in Bolivia- comfortable, clean and the drivers actually seem quite good and go very slowly on the hilly bits! It does mean we´ve always been about an hour or 2 late but that´s much better than the alternative! The jounrey to Cochabamba was amazing again. We went uphill for the first bit and so then lost loads of height. For ages it was the same barren altiplano as before but then we started to see more and more trees. There are so few roads here that you can see where you´ll be going next by seeing the other buses and lorries on different mountains! They´d promised us that there´d be a loo on the bus but it had broken (they also have) but we did stop at the most random remote service station ever where you can pay 1 Boliviano (about 9p) to use theirs. By the time we arrived in Cochabamba it was dark but it was clearly so different from the area near La Paz- it´s called the bread basket of Bolivia as things actually grow there!

We had a lazy day in Cochabamba and two consecutive nights in the same place! A first since Iquitos! There´s not much to do there but they have a huge market so we went shopping. We´d heard you could by "artesania" (Andean style touristy things like hammocks and alpaca scarfs) but we spent ages walking around past the cleaning products, spare parts for cars and live animals and started to get worried we´d missed our chance and should have caved in the touristy places in Peru. We eventually found it though and spent lots of money. So far though Bolivia has been really cheap- long-distance buses are about 3 or 4 pounds, a night´s accomodation between 4 and 6! Packing is now a bit harder though as we have all the things we bought and it´s too hot to wear jumpers so we need space for them too!

We left Cochabamba and spent another whole day travelling to Santa Cruz. We lost the remaining height really quickly and were suddenly in the rainforest again! It reminded me so much of Iquitos and was so hot after having got used to the cold at altitude. It´s amazing to have seen the transition of the continent from desert at the coast near Lima, to mountains, then the altiplano and now rainforest. It´s an incredible continent and I think it´s a really nice way to see it, even if it does involve a lot of buses!

We intended to stay one night in Santa Cruz but we were told that the train on Sundays is much nicer so we decided to stay 2. Unfortunately we´ve just found out they´re sold out of tickets so we have to get yet another bus! We´re a bit dissappointed but it is cheaper and yet still the most luxurious bus there is, so we might get some sleep! We head off in a couple of hours and get to Brazil tomorrow morning. Meanwhile we´ve been staying in a hostel with a pool so have had 2 very relaxing days swimming and reading books. I have just found out that the weather in the first part of Brazil we´re goin to is about 36 degress, 28 in Rio and 3 in Salvador so I may have to find more places with pools! It´s a hard life.

Cuzco to La Paz

Sorry not to have written for a while. We´ve been pretty busy though and we haven´t had much internet. In the last week we´ve travelled from Cuzco down to Puno on the Peruvian shores of Lake Titicaca, then to La Paz, and through Bolivia to Cochabamba and now Santa Cruz. Tonight we´re off to Brazil!

We´ve spent a lot of time on buses but the scenery was so amazing. After Cuzco it changed from "normal" mountains into the weirdest landscape. It´s called the altiplano and is really high (all above 3500 metres) but it feels almost like Wales and the valleys are so high that the peaks look like hills. It´s very dry and hostile-looking, almost nothing grows and the houses are pretty spread out. It must be a hard place to live. We saw a few herds of alpaca/llama (and some sheep and cows). Still don´t know which are which but I read that alpaca are smaller and delicate and their wool is used for nice things whilst llama are tougher and their wool is used for ropes and things.

We stayed a night in Puno. It´s at 3800 metres -pretty high! We haven´t had any real problems with the altitude but the hostel kitchen was on the 4th floor and we were pretty out of breath by the time we got there! We spent the next morning on a tour of the floating islands in Lake Titicaca. They built the islands out of reeds, it´s amazing, no idea how they cope at night though- it was so cold! We met a Brazilian lady who´s offered to cook us lunch one day in Rio. We then got a bus over the border and another to La Paz and on the second one we met 3 Brazilians and a german girl. 2 of the Brazilians (a couple) are going to meet up with us in Rio and maybe take us out to some lovely beaches on the Sunday. It was so much fun to speak Portuguese. I´ve been really worried about it but it´s definitely coming back :-)

So now we´re in a new country. It´s noticably different in many wways- much poorer and the places we´ve been are much less on the "gringo trail". I´ll write another blog entry later about the rest of our timein Bolivia before we change country again!

I´ve been trying to put some photos up but it´s not working, may have to try again in Rio!

Machu Pichhu and the Sacred Valley

I am sitting in an internet cafe in Aguas Calientes, the village near Machu Picchu waiting for the train back to Cuzco. We´ve had an amazing three days. After I last wrote we wandered around Cuzco and went to a couple of museums about the Incas. They did some very weird things- for example taking the mummies of their ancestors to parties so that they could be with the other mummies (I think this was the Incas, but I may be wrong)! We also just explored the city which is really nice, surrounded by mountains and much prettier than Lima.

Then early yesterday morning we got a local bus into the Sacred Valley. We stopped off first at a palce called Chinchero where there are some small Inca ruins. They were really pretty and the landscape was incredible- steep hills used for farming and then in the distance snow-topped mountains, which we worked out were all around or over 6000m. Chinchero itself is at almost 3800 metres. We hadn´t noticed the altitude in Cuzco, possibly thanks to the bus journey to get there but we did at Chinchero. As we got off the bus we noticed ourselves breathing faster and the 100 or so metres we climbed at the ruins were very hardwork! It was really fun though.

We then went to a village called Ollantaytambo which has a train to Machu Picchu. It´s therefore really touristy and almost all the restaurants were advertised in English. We however manages to find a very Peruvian one and got two courses for about a 5th of the price of elsewhere- we were very chuffed! Ollanta is lovely too, again surrounded by mountains, two of which have Inca ruins built into the hillside. It´s incredible engineering. The fortress there was one of the few places to win a battle with the Spanish, but it was also a ceremonial centre and a farm! We wondered around for a while and then spent ages waiting for the train.

We got to Aguas Calientes and stayed the night and then this morning got up to go to Machu Picchu. To be honest when I realsied how expensive it is to get here and get in I had wondered whether it was worth it but I´m so glad we came. It´s absolutely magical, a city perched on a hill surrounded by so many huge mountains. In the morning when we got there they were covered in haze from the sun and Jen and I agreed that they looked so strange we´d almost expect a dragon to come flying over! It was really amazing. I don´t know how the Incas managed to live there, let along built such an amazing place. We spent about 5 hours walking around and went for a walk nearby to an Incan bridge.

Back to Cuzco this evening and the same hostel as before, then tomorrow we´re off to Puno on the banks of Lake Titicaca.

Cuzco!

Hello from Cuzco! It's a gorgeous place, so happy to have made it! The flight on Wednesday to Lima was 3 hours late so I spent almost the whole day oin the airport and din't get to the hostel until 9. It was fun though cos when I arrived Jen and Sara had met each other and were cooking for us all- not a bad welcome party!

Yesterday we got up and sorted everything out and then got on a bus at 2 and got off it at 10 this morning. It was quite a nice bus, called semi-cama which means that the seats go back a decent way but you are still sleeping at quite an angle. The first few hours were fun as we went along the coast. It was just desert everywhere, with a very rough Pacific on our right and sand everywhere else. Nice and flat though. Then, just before dark we headed east and spent the rest of the time going up and down lots of mountains in a succession of hair-pin bends. To be honest it was rather nauseating and sleeping was hard as every 30 seconds or so you were thrown one direction or the other! Jen is currently having a nap to catch up on some sleep and recovering as she felt a bit ill this morning. Also about 9 o'clock last night we got stopped by a police car who insisted on escorting us and two other buses up as something had happened further up the road. They were showing a horror film on the TV so we were a bit scared but in the end it was fine and our drivers were actually the best I've ever come across in South America! The worst journey is definitely over!

We went out to explore for a bit when we got here and are going back out later. Then tomorrow we're off to the Sacred Valley and on Sunday Machu Picchu!

Goodbye Iquitos!

I can´t quite believe it, but tomorrow is my last day in Iquitos! I´ve had such a fun time here I´m really sad to leave. Erin left on Sunday but on Saturday 3 more people arrived- Will and Sophie are medics from Swansea and Kate is Will´s girlfriend and is volunteering here at a manatee rescue centre. They´re all lovely and it´s nice not to have been here by myself at all! On Saturday I went into hospital in the afternoon and then we all went out in the evening, for drinks and then to a club until about 3.30. It was fun though the the men were quite hard work- all wanting to dance with the gringas but a bit creepy! We just danced together. Then on Sunday we had a really lazy day, in the afternoon going to the hostel with the swimming pool like last weekend. Since then I´ve been back in hospital for two days, back in paediatrics.

It is funny here, in some ways I feel like I know my way around and fit in but then I still stand out like a sore-thumb! All the motocarro (aka rickshaw) drivers at the hospital know where I live as for a while I was the only non-Peruvian there. I go to get one home and they all shout out "Napo cuadro 6" (my address)! But I feel like I have some good friends in the hospital now which is nice and for the last few days I have been much more useful, filling in forms for the interns and helping decide which children can be discharged.

This afternoon we all went to meet Kate at the manatee place. They are so sweet- even the babies are pretty huge. We helped feed one who was attacked by a machete but is now doing really well. We then went to feed the fish. They farm them there, in huge ponds in the rainforest. The fish were huge- over 2 metres long! We decided we may have found the lockness monsters nearest relatives!

Got to go, we´re going out for drinks on the bank of the river to celebrate my last night. Will write when I can.

p.s. I have put some more photos up.

Stories from a small town

Hi, I realised I haven't written for a while but I've sort of settled into a routine so it feels like there's less news. In fact I've just thought of lots of things worth writing about! So here are a few anecdotes:

The hospital's birthday.
Last Tuesday (3rd August) I was in the paediatric ward when I heard a band start playing. I then found out that it was the 20th anniversary of the hospital and so they were celebrating with a march. After wardrounds lots of the staff went outside and proceeded to march through the grounds in groups, each group with a flag saying what medical specialty or other job they did. A man then mentioned each individually and said what a good job they did- everything from gynae oncology to the computer people (although I haven't seen a computer in the hospital so I'm not sure what they do!) It was really impressive actually and very Peruvian- they had so many processions the first week for their Independence Day. They seemed very surprised when I said you'd never get anything similar in London! I wish I'd had my camera.

Antibiotics.
One of the things that annoys me here is that the doctors almost all overprescribe. I know that infectious diseases are a huge problem but everyone is on antibiotics, and then a whole range of other drugs to combat the side effects of the overly strong treatment. And if any of us get ill they try to make us take 3 or 4 drugs ourselves. It's a culture shared in lots of countries I think but it's a bit worrying.

Animals and earthquakes.
Erin and I went out for a drink last night. There are lots of stray dogs and cats in the town but yesterday we saw a sloth! I've never seen one before, it was really sweet. I'm rather less keen on the insects though as I'm still being biten lots. Last night was particularly bad and people were laughing at me in the hospital today for having so many big red bites. The other excitement was abotu 7 this morning when I woke up and the room was shaking. Apparently earthquakes are hardly ever felt here because all the rivers cushion it or something but this one was quite impressive. It turns out it was in Ecuador in fact but 7 on the Richter scale so quite big.

I'm sure I had more stories but I can't remember any so that will do for now, hasta luego!

Photos

Just a quick note to say that I now have some photos on my picasa page. Annoying my camera broke almost as soon as I got here. I´ve borrowed Rosy, the doctor´s wife´s camera but the photos aren´t as good as I´d have liked! The screen wasn´t great and in the strong sunlight I could never see what I was taking! Here they are:

http://picasaweb.google.com/104911634904115031032

I´ll add some more soon.

It´s the weekend!!

Hello all. I´m feeling much better and have had a really nice weekend. On Thursday night I finally agreed to let Ernesto prescribe me some antibiotics and they did make a big difference! I went into hospital as normal on Friday and did two little presentations on different parasites. It went well and I think I taught the mother of one of the patients some useful facts so that´s good I guess! I was exhausted afterwards though as I haven´t been able to eat much all week. I tried to lie-in on Saturday and today but they have birds in cages just outside my room, and I don´t have any glass in my window (it looks out into the hall so that isn´t a huge problem) so they woke me up before 7 both days! Yesterday I lazed about all morning and then went into A&E in the afternoon. There weren´t many adult patients about but there were loads of children in the paediatric room so I went there. Lots of lung infections and tummy bugs again! I stayed for about 3 and a half hours and then went home. Then Erin and I (Sara´s left so it´s just us) went out to the boulevard, the main social area which looks out over the Amazon, for a couple of drinks. It´s so nice to feel better, we were both so excited!

Today I spent all morning booking things for the trip and then Erin and I went to a hostel that has a swimming pool and the nicest garden with lots of hammocks and an amazing tree house. We swam and sat in the sun and chatted all afternoon. It was so relaxing, really the first day in ages that I haven´t had to do anything. Near the end of the afternoon we decided to climb the tree house. The views over Iquitos were amazing. Right at the top we met 2 French guys and their Peruvian friend. We started chatting to them and found out that they´ve been here for ages, doing volunatry work in the community. I chatted a bit in French which went better than expected considering I´m so busy thinking in Spanish! We then met all their friends who are really nice and we talked for quite a while. They live just around the corner from us so hopefully we´ll meet up sometime. I love talking to people from lots of different countries in different languages, it´s made me really excited about going travelling once Ï´ve finished here.

We don´t get food in the house on Sunday so we just went out for the biggest meal! Peruvian portions are huge but the food´s nice. I´m now booking Jen and my tickets to Machu Picchu, which is very exciting!

Paediatrics (and parasites)

Back to hospital after my extended break. I'm now doing paediatrics though so I'm very happy. The doctors are really nice and every day we do a long wardround and see all the patients. It's tough being a child here. What with the crazy transport system, dodgy water and overall poverty it seems that surviving the first few months of childhood are the big test, once you manage that you've toughened up a bit. Most of the children either have breathing problems or vomiting and diarrhoea and there are lots who've had horrible accidents. The doctors do a great job though- the baby who's cousin through a machete at his head is now home after having spent the week running around looking perfectly healthy! Kids are funny because they get so ill but they also bounce back so quickly!
I've discovered a hidden skill. I can make the children here stop crying in shock, and sometimes even laugh when they see me because I look so different and funny in their eyes. The doctors too are always asking me questions about medicine in London. The other day one asked me what parasite we see most of and was shocked when I said we didn't really see many! There are two kids with different ones at the moment so the doctor made me read up on them and tell him about them. I can't pronounce "estrongiloidiasis" very easily though!

In other news the whole hosuehold, me included is a bit ill with stomach bugs. I didn't go into hospital today and the other girls have been off all week. Ernesto's been teasing us that we picked up our own worms in the jungle and is going to give us antibiotics for now and antiparasite drugs for when we leave, just in case! Not the nicest thought!

In the depths of the Amazon rainforest.

I´m back from my jungle trip and both alive and free from head injuries. I do however have (no exaggeration) about 300 bites though. Mostly on my legs, to the extent that sitting down and walking both hurt quite a lot!

It was great fun though. We decided not to go to a lodge like most people do but to go further into the rainforest to a big reserve called the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve which is about 180 km from Iquitos. There were 6 of us and 3 guides and we travelled upstream from a town called Nauta, about 2 hours drive from Iquitos (which is about as far as you can get!) We got on this tiny little boat, long and thin like a barge with an engine at the back and a straw roof. It takes about 3 hours to get to the reserve and then the first day we went about another hour further in. We stayed in a hut in a village the first night and then yesterday 3 of us and the guides went further upstream whilst the others stayed at the village. It was so nice to be on the river and the views were incredible. Once we were in the reserve we branched of into a tribuitary and it got much narrower. There were lots of birds everywhere and msot excitingly 2 types of river dolphin- one pink and one grey. They were everywhere, jumping around any playing!

The first day I tried going swimming as the guide said the dolphins would come and play but within 5 seconds 100s of timy fish were biting me so I jumped out. There are lots of piranhas there too so I´m glad I did!

When we got further upstream on the second day we hired a local guide and he took us canoeing in his fishing canoe. He was fishing with a spear and we tried later but it was really hard. Sara managed to get one though! We stopped off after a while and walked into the rainforest for a bit to a stream. There we did some fishing with rods for our lunch. I was hopeless but finally got one! I sat down after awhile though to balance myself and I think I might have got most of my bites then. I was so determined to get a fish i forgot about everything else! We then ate the fish (Tiger fish) for lunch. It was so nice, the freshest I´ve ever eaten!
We carried on further after lunch and then camped by the edge of the river that night. It was so noisy in the tent as we were right in the rainforest. Some birds almost sound like a siren or traffic noise and you almost forget where you are!

Today we just travlled back by boat. It was so relaxing.

Nina Rumi

So after 2 days in the hospital I´m now on holiday! A clear benefit to living in a Republic/ ex-colony is you have an Independence day and a clear benefit to being Peruvian is you get 3 days off instead of just 1! Yesterday we (the Salazars and the 4 girls staying here) went to their country house in a village called Nina Rumi. The house was amazing- they built it themselves and it´s wooden, on stilts with a roof of leaves and open windows. But it also had 2 floors, a shower and flushing loo, full kitchen and a huge garden with lots of fruit trees. And it looked out over the river Nanay which joins the Amazon in Iquitos.
We spent most of the time lounging in hammocks, playing cards or at the beach- a canoe ride away on the other side of the river with gorgeous sand, lovely views and water you can swim in. It was heaven! Last night Sara and I slept in hammocks downstairs which were really comfy. I didn´t want to leave but tomorrow morning we 8sara and I again) are off to the jungle for 3 days!

Days 1 and 2 in the hospital

Scary Stuff! It turns out that whilst I can speak Spanish and I do know at least some medicine, when I try to do both together it gets hard! I've spent the last two days in the neurosurgery department with Dr Ernesto Salazar so that I can get to know the hospital. He's the only neurosurgeon in this region of Peru and the nearby parts of Brazil and Colombia. My neurology is rather rusty. It's been a bit of a baptism of fire! We've seen some interesting stuff though. There are almost no cars in Iquitos and so every travels by motorbike or "motocarro"- kind of like a rickshaw but with an engine. Probably more than half of the patients I've seen have back or head injuries after an road accident. It's crazy. You see Mum, Dad and three kids all on one motorbike. I've also seen spinal TB which I was then told to write a presentation on. However Ernesto then spent last night teaching me about head CT scans so I didn't have time to finish it. Panic offer at least for now until he remembers I still need to do it!

It's Peruvian Independence day tomorrow and so we have the rest of the week off! If the weather's ok all of us in the house are going to the Salazar's beach house for 2 days. Very excited! Then Sara and I are going on a trip into the Amazon from Friday until Sunday. I can't wait! Hopefully I'll then start paediatrics on Monday :-)

First day in Iquitos

I'm in Iquitos! Sorry I haven't written sooner, I've been pretty busy. Left Lima on Sunday morning and had the most gorgeous flight across Peru. We flew all the way over the Andes to a place called Tarapoto. For ages there were just huge brown mountains, some with snow on top and then slowly they started getting greener as more and more trees appeared until we were flying over the beginnings of the rainforest- so amazing! We stopped in Tarapoto for about 45 minutes and then flew on to Iquitos. The first thing I noticed was how hot and humid it is compared to Lima.
I'm staying with Dr Salazar who arranged the placement and his wife. They were out having lunch so I went to join them. They were in their club by the banks of a small tribuitary but right next to the Amazon river. The views were so amazing!
After lunch we went back to the house where I met the three other girls staying here, Lucy, Sara and Erin. None of them are medics but Sara is doing work experience at the hospital so we are together the whole time. They are all really nice and it was such a relief to find out I wasn't alone!

Lima!

Hello from Lima! It´s cold and very polluted but it´s fun to the back in South America. I´m staying in a friendly hostel in an area called Barranco and have spent the last couple of days getting up early and going exploring and then coming back early and falling asleep! Think I might be a bit jet-lagged... I´ve met some nice people though and might meet up with a couple in Salvador.
Off to Iquitos tomorrow :-) Have heard lots of good things about it so am excited!
Will try to write more when I´m there. There´s a queue for the only computer here so I´d better go!

Ready to go!

It's 11.30 on the night before I head off and I'm finally totaly packed. Am staying at Tom's in London ready for an early start to tomorrow! Very excited!